


the possessed policemen posse

by orbitalknight



Category: Kamen Rider Drive, Kamen Rider OOO
Genre: Aftermath of Possession, Crossover, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, Slow burn friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 00:53:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21066059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orbitalknight/pseuds/orbitalknight
Summary: Kouichi Kano and Shingo Izumi have a couple very, very, specific things in common.Maybe they should talk it out.





	the possessed policemen posse

It was one in the afternoon, three hours into the stakeout, that the words Koichi Kanno hated the most were finally spoken in the cramped interior of the police car. 

“Maybe we should get to know one another. It’s not like our precincts do joint operations very often,” the forced friendliness of the brown-haired policeman sitting in the passenger’s seat only made it worse, “I think we’re going to be here a while, anyway.”

Koichi Kanno knew he wasn’t the kind of person anyone saw and thought of as a prospective friend, even though ironically enough it had been that quality which had landed him in this situation. If it weren’t for some star detective asking if he had any friends, Koichi would still be a traffic cop on a wide and quiet road. 

His partner for this case, unfortunately, seemed far less interested in silence, and was still talking. “Let’s start with introductions. I know we did them back at HQ, but there doesn’t seem a reason not to do a refresher. I’m Shingo Izumi. Shingo is fine.”

Koichi looked Shingo dead in the eyes for a few moments before speaking. “Koichi Kanno.” 

“Kanno, then?” Shingo was still smiling, somehow. 

Koichi decided the absence of a negative response would function as an affirmative. For a few precious minutes, the tactic seemed to work. All was silent, save for the occasional buzz over the radio. 

“You don’t happen to know an Akira Hayase, do you?” The other policeman was talking again. 

Koichi stared daggers out the window instead of at his temporary partner before attempting some sort of recovery and response, because the question was actually of some interest. “We were assigned to the same case last year.”

“Really?” Shingo shifted his whole body to face Koichi more directly. “I used to see him all the time at physical therapy. Nice that he’s back on active duty already.” 

Working the explosion/machine life form case with detective Hayase had been up there on Koichi’s list of miserable experiences. He had thought it was the worst until Officer Shijima’s younger brother had punched him in the stomach and left him on the pavement outside some warehouse. What happened after that... Koichi still wasn’t sure. It resembled an experience he’d had buying groceries once. A cold pair of eyes he’d felt on his back and never been able to find in the crowd. 

If Koichi had been working the aforementioned case with only detective Hayase, there was a chance the experience would have been less dismal. But one Officer Tomari had made a mission of causing Koichi misery by way of friendliness, much as Shingo Izumi seemed to be doing now. Still, something scratched at the “police instincts” a long-ago career quiz had told Koichi he possessed. 

“Physical therapy?” Koichi asked. 

Shingo seemed surprised to have actually received the question. “Yes! Hayase was there for the injury he received during the Global Freeze, if I remember correctly.”

Koichi nodded. “I know that. Why were you there?”

“Oh,” Shingo made a vague gesture with his right hand, “I was injured and incapacitated a while back, but after I finished my therapy I thought I owed it to help out every now and then.” 

“Injured and incapacitated? During the Global Freeze.”

“No, no,” Shingo’s smile from before had stumbled off his face, “Before that.” 

“I see,” Koichi had accidentally turned this into an interrogation, but Shingo did seem eager enough to answer, “You were... comatose?”

“I think that might have been easier than what actually happened,” Shingo said, with a weak half-laugh. He rubbed at the palm of his right hand. “Do you believe in supernatural occurrences, Kano?”

Koichi frowned, uncertain of the relevance the question had on the conversation. “To an extent,” he said, after a pause. “Though not as passionately as some of my superior officers.”

“You might not believe me, then,” Something in Shingo had shifted, become less warm as he spoke. “I was possessed. For around a year, give or take. More or less conscious, but totally helpless.” 

“Possessed by what?” Koichi leaned forward. His heart started to tap out an urgent beat in his chest. He had a feeling, a hunch, something. 

“That’s a much longer story,” Shingo’s eyes had gone distant with recollection, “The short answer is an ancient creature called a Greeed in the shape of a floating arm.” 

“Oh,” Koichi sat back in the seat, “Then our experiences aren’t similar after all.” 

Shingo sat up, suddenly more alert. “Our... what?”

“I have no reason to disbelieve your claim of possession. I have also experienced the incapacitation you’ve described.” 

The statement seemed harmless enough when Koichi spoke it aloud. He didn’t anticipate that Shingo would try to stand up inside the car and hit his head on the ceiling with enough force to knock himself unconscious. 

***

It’s only after the medical team had swooped in and made sure Shingo didn’t have a concussion that they get to talking again. They take the minor injury as a break, swapping with a different pair of policemen whose names Koichi has already forgotten. He sat with Officer Izumi on the front steps of a nearby building more out of guilt than a sense of partnership and duty. It was the first time he’d mentioned his experience to anyone and having it go so unpredictably poorly only cemented his desire to never talk about it again. 

Shingo keeps dropping the ice pack he’s supposed to be holding to the place where he hit his head, as if his excitement wasn’t obvious enough already. Eventually Shingo figured out a precarious but functional arrangement of limbs with his left arm partially obscuring his face to balance the ice pack so he can still gesture with his right hand. Always the right hand.

“Let me make sure I have this right, Kanno,” as soon as he started speaking Koichi found himself yearning for the blissful moments that Shingo had been unconscious and by extension silent, “You were, or you think you were... Possessed?” 

“That’s the easiest way to describe what happened, yes.” 

“More than once?”

“Only once.”

“For how long? Do you remember anything from while it happened, or--” Shingo cut himself off, half laughing. “I’m sorry for all the questions. I’ve just... I’ve never met anyone else.” 

Shingo’s face is colored in emotions that Koichi can only half-identify. He wanted to confess in that moment, say that he’s also never met anyone else, never spoken about what happened despite how often it haunts him.  _ I think I stole a truck. Sometimes my memories don’t feel like they belong to me. I might be in love with my superior officer’s brother.  _ “I don’t mind the questions,” he said instead, “It wasn’t for more than an hour. I don’t remember anything except immediately before and immediately after.”

Shingo nodded, holding the ice pack almost like it’s a hat. “Very different, huh.” He hummed thoughtfully, silent for a second, then shifted his whole torso to give Koichi a once-over with his eyes. “This is where it gets a little difficult. Do you know who or what possessed you?” 

Inside the car, it had been difficult to tell, but Shingo was tall. Seeing his long limbs in their full context gave the brown-haired policeman the appearance of some gangling baby animal, like a giraffe or a horse. The observation distracted Koichi, and he took an extra moment to process the question. “What do you mean, who?” 

“Well...” Shingo frowned, slightly, “There was an intent behind your possession, wasn’t there? Just having your body taken over is one thing, like spirit channeling, but I’m guessing that wasn’t all that happened.” 

It was an insight Koichi hadn’t expected. “No, I don’t know who or what it was.” 

Concern, and maybe a little disappointment, washed across Shingo’s face like the ocean at high tide. “Really?” 

Koichi almost felt embarrassed at the way the other policeman had said it. “Yes. It wasn’t relevant at the time. I needed to make an arrest.” 

“Huh,” Shingo leaned back on the stairs, still awkwardly holding the ice pack. “Well, nobody can fault you for a lack of dedication. I think not knowing would eat me alive, to be honest.”

Koichi was fairly certain there were other answers he needed much more than the identity of his body’s one-time visitor. Though, thinking about it... There could be a connection. “You know, then?” he fumbled with the words, “With your experience?”

Shingo smiled wryly. “I might know a little too well, actually. Not to say that he-- the floating arm, I mean -- and I were exactly cordial. Still,” for a second, his gaze became distant again, “It is nice to know who you’re being mistaken for when someone looks at your face expecting to see another person there. Probably not a very relatable experience, that one.” 

If they’d still been in the car, this would have been the point in which Koichi stood up and knocked  _ himself _ out. Those were the  _ only _ looks Koichi got, ever since that day on the highway. They haunted him far more than the possession, the helplessness of not having his body paled in comparison to the not knowing. Nobody had ever bothered to explain why unfriendliness had gotten him promoted, why Officers Shijima and Tomari looked at him with such crushingly obvious pity and remorse. Officer Shijima’s younger brother was still the worst. He had a special look for Koichi that was just different enough from the rest. It didn’t help that whenever they spoke something tight coiled itself in the hollow of Koichi’s ribcage like a rattlesnake preparing to strike. His feelings for Gou were too complicated to untangle. He never wanted to think about them, think about  _ him.  _

Koichi did stand up now, though, hands clenched tightly at his sides.

Shingo looked at him, a wrinkle forming between his brows. “Kanno?”

Koichi took a deep breath. “Officer Izumi. Shingo. That is the singularly most relatable thing you’ve said this entire afternoon.” 

Shingo dropped the ice pack, getting to his feet in such a messy sort of hurry that Koichi couldn’t help but be reminded of a horse again. He put both hands on Koichi’s shoulders. “Kanno. That’s terrible. I am  _ so  _ sorry. If you’ll let me, I’d like to help you figure this out.”

There came the sound of a throat being cleared from behind Koichi. It was one of the medical team from before. “Pardon the uh, intrusion,” he said, “We have another team that is scheduled for a break.”

The meaning was clear enough. Shingo nodded at Koichi before retrieving the ice pack and returning it. “Thank you. We’ll get back to it now. Any updates?” 

The med team member shook his head. “Nothing yet.” 

“Alright,” Shingo cracked his neck unsettlingly loudly, “Kanno?” he jerked his head in the direction of the car. 

Koichi nodded back at him in acknowledgment. Somehow, the prospect of getting back in the car seemed a little less dismal than it had. Shingo’s motivations for helping him were still from a place of pity, in all likelihood, but the care at least did seem to be genuine. Koichi couldn’t think of a time he’d experienced a connection like this with someone else before now, so he didn’t really have anything to use for comparison. 

“You know,” Shingo said as they climbed back into the front seats of the police car, “Maybe it was more than just a joint operation that brought us together. Like fate! What do you think?” 

While Koichi couldn’t help but wonder about the coincidental nature of the whole thing, he was fairly certain that they’d been paired together for being equally insufferable by different means rather than anything else. 

His lack of response seemed to go unnoticed by Shingo, who tapped idly on the steering wheel with his fingers as he spoke. “If we’re going to find out what it was that possessed you we may as well come up with a team name. ‘Possessed Policemen Posse’ is too long, isn’t it...”

Koichi had a bad feeling that whatever Shingo came up with was going to stick in the worst way. He declined comment nonetheless. 

“How about ‘the PoPos’ for short?” 

**Author's Note:**

> it's here !!!
> 
> this is a fic that's been bouncing around my head like a screensaver icon for. a significant amount of time.  
i hope that at some point the amount i care about these generally irrelevant characters actually starts to make some sense. but i really like thinking about them! 
> 
> as always, thank you for reading!


End file.
